RIP USA -- Poll: Half of Trump voters, 41% of Biden voters support splitting up the U.S.

[durablend]

https://www.abc27.com/news/us-world/politics/poll-half-of-trump-voters-41-of-biden-voters-support-splitting-up-the-u-s/

NEXSTAR) – More than half of Trump voters (52%) and 41% of Biden voters expressed support for cleaving the country along political lines, according to a new poll from the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.

The UVA Center for Politics teamed up with Project Home Fire, a group working for common ground in American politics, to find out just how deep our divisions run. The poll consisted of 300 questions given to 1,001 Trump voters and 1,011 Biden voters (margin of error +/- 2.2 %).

The poll asked people to respond on a sliding scale based on how much they agreed with different statements, including, “The situation in America is such that I would favor [Blue/Red] states seceding from the union to form their own separate country.”

The responses supporting the idea of forming two new countries out of red and blue states ranged from “at least somewhat agree” to “strongly agree.”

(continues...)

[JI7]

1. Most of these are knee jerk responses based on people's anger

towards the other side.

Splitting up would mean large numbers of black and native Americans would be stuck in a right wing nation and would become legally lower class citizens .

Many supporters probably include right wingers in California .

[Volaris]

3. Right?!?! Tell me what that map looks like...

[Blue_true]

16. Not really.

The country can be split in half north-south along the continental divide. People that don’t have the resources to move to their preferred country could be given adequate resources. Property can be exchanged between people leaving each side based upon equivalent market value. Minors (under 18 and people 18-22 can be given a one chance opportunity to switch sides, gaining automatic citizenship in their preferred side.

A split is workable and probably advisable, it is not about emotions.

[fescuerescue]

66. Who's going to give it to them?

It's a real question. The resources to move that is.

If half the country has to pay the other half. And the other half has to pay the other half....

I really don't think people are going to willing pay the pay they hate. Which means that most people will be forced to. At gunpoint.

I'm pretty sure it won't be amicable and the emotions will be still present even centuries later after the shooting stops.

[Blue_true]

78. You are assuming that one side would have most of the people moving.

If you look at the modern political divide, the two groups split into roughly equal parts. Of course blue states that go to the red country would have lots of progressives moving, but red states that go to the blue country would have lots of rightwing people leaving. Funding for moves can be part of the agreement to split up.

The situation is not as complicated as you make it out to be and is definitely better than fighting another civil war (police forces are so rightwing today that I don’t expect to see them containing hotheads that want war, the side that get victimized would be forces to fight back).

[brush]

42. It can never happen as there is no way to divide up the states geographically...

There's not Mason-Dixon line.

[cinematicdiversions]

45. Actually the majority of blacks live in red states

Blue States tend to be whitet and less diverse.

[fescuerescue]

67. That doesn't sound right.

[smirkymonkey]

74. Well, New England is pretty white, relatively speaking.

And cold for a lot of people used to the south.

[electric_blue68]

54. Oh, yeah I've said that before in DU some months ago, or last year...

and not everyone who'd be targeted could afford to move.

[DBoon]

2. bet Putin is doing the happy dance

[Blue_true]

19. Putin's worse nightmare is a blue USA, even if only half of what we have now.

The blue country would instantly become a formidable economic and technology powerhouse that would be capable of removing Putin from the face of the earth if it so desired.

[Raven123]

4. Reminds me of Brexit.

[multigraincracker]

5. You'd have to carve out states,

Towns, streets and finally homes.

[JohnSJ]

10. Exactly. There are Democrats in red states too

[Blue_true]

17. Yes.

Each country would need to reform how it partitions itself (ie, states or provinces or something else). Each partition can form it’s cities, towns, villages.

[multigraincracker]

30. In some cases you might

have to split homes.

[Blue_true]

44. Not likely.

Have you ever looked at some city and state boundary maps? There are funky shapes because the planners of an earlier era built borders around landmarks, businesses and even homes.

[packman]

6. Have two islands - let them choose to live there if they wish

and let the rest of us sane persons stay in the U.S. Shit, I'll even throw in a few dollars to help them relocate.

[Amishman]

50. You'd need a hell of a big island for seventy some million people

I'm at the point where defederalization and delegating a lot more to state, county, and local levels seems to be the only option

[packman]

75. Seems rather counter-productive to a unified nation

Are you suggesting even more division? The Q nuts are advocating just that approach from taking over school boards to local elections. America has , or should have, no place for permitting local levels decide on their own form of government and own set of prejudices.

[Amishman]

76. I no longer believe a truly united nation is possible

We have an intractable cultural divide, that breaks down on urban an rural lines. The other side is no more going to come around than our progressives are to abandon their beliefs and go rushing to the political center.

Unless something is done to relieve or mitigate the tension, the wheels are going to come off violently.

[FelineOverlord]

7. RIP USA -- Poll: Half of Trump voters, 41% of Biden voters support splitting up the U.S.

Allen West keeps saying that Texas should secede.

Wait until they find out they would lose millions of jobs and people would flee.

Anyway, if they want to leave so bad, they can have Alabama, West Virginia, and Mississippi. They'd immediately be a third-world country.

Just wait until the deadbeat red states aren't supported by the blue states any longer.

[spooky3]

9. Except I want Ben and Erin Napier to come with us.

(HGTV Hometown stars in Laurel MS)

[Mossfern]

69. They are the best!

I've considered relocating because of that show (Home Town) but somehow assume there's no synagogue there...

[OriginalGeek]

70. Love that show

Wish they could build me a house. I would proudly hang her painting of my house in the living room and I would ask for a ride in his truck. Even a short ride would be cool.

[spooky3]

77. I agree with you and Mossfern.

Though I would want them to restore and update a house rather than build one for me. Or, even if they just lived next door…

[spooky3]

8. Good luck to the red states for covering their own bills without

Blue state subsidies.

[Turbineguy]

11. A poll on

how badly Americans want to destroy their country.

[TheProle]

40. No shit.

This thread is disturbing.

[relayerbob]

12. Problem is, it's urban vs rural, not North vs South

But as long as relocation is paid for, I'm OK with it.

[USAFRetired_Liberal]

13. This

As far fetched as the idea of splitting is, if it did happen then each citizen should get a choice in where they wanted to live…if they decided to leave their state then the relocation should be paid for.

[walkingman]

26. I would vote for that. That would be an eye-opening experience.

[relayerbob]

43. Yeah, as backwards as the red states are

Imagine what they will be like if all the "libruls" left, and they were filled with the residue of every other state

In either case, would be cheaper and better than Civil War 2

[Withywindle]

57. I'm not ok with it

If you know anyone living in a purple state, or even a red state, you know there are people who have family and friends there. People who have grown up there and are connected to the community where they are. People who love the landscape and the history.

No, I am not going to tell someone who grew up in the rich history of the Black Belt in SC, MS, AL, that they have to move. I'm not comfortable telling liberals and lefties who have been rural for generations in Appalachia or the West that they need to move.

If anything, some of these rural states are so sparsely populated that a mass move TO them from the big blue cities would easily turn them. You'd only need a quarter million from LA and NYC to turn WY blue for decades, that's two Senators right there. Half a million would do it for WV, another 2.

[relayerbob]

59. I live in Georgia

So, yeah, I know a few folks in red states. I’ve also lived all over the country, and you know what? Moving isn’t a bad thing.

[Withywindle]

82. Moving is expensive

Not easy to do if you're poor. This penalizes poor people in red states (who are more likely to be people of color, who are more likely to vote blue in those states)

Moving sucks if it's against your will.

[lagomorph777]

60. It would look like Swiss cheese. There would be a hundred thousand miles of interlaced border walls

Katusha rockets going over the walls, car bombs, a permanent nightmare.

Putin must be delighted.

[ecstatic]

84. I don't think it needs to be a relocation thing. Issue Red Cards/ Blue cards

Each group selects their own leaders. Choose the blue card, you get health insurance, quality education, reproductive rights, etc. Choose the red card, eat shit and die. The problem would come from jealous GOP terrorists.

[gulliver]

15. The poll demonstrates how asinine polls can be.

[PortTack]

20. This!

[StarfishSaver]

48. Exactly

I wonder what the results would have been has such a poll been conducted 10, 20, 30, 50, 60 years ago.

I suspect they wouldn't have been all that different.

Sometimes the story is the fact that the question was asked and answered, not the answer itself.

[TeamProg]

18. Worth considering. The backward south is taking the

rest of the country with them. There’s no arguing that truth.

Time to cut bait.

[Kaleva]

22. Millions of liberals in the South who you'd prefer to suffer their fate.

[TeamProg]

27. They'll continue to suffer, that's my point. The North is suffering minority rule. If that can be

ended, why not. For what reason should the north continue to finance the south? For oil refineries? Florida?

Time to cut bait.

[Kaleva]

28. What are you going to do with the millions of Magahats who live in the North?

Folks who won't wear masks, won't get vaccinated, attack health workers and so on?

[TeamProg]

32. Health mandates - no exemptions. Just like Polio and Smallpox and all of the others.

Sounds great, huh?

[Kaleva]

36. So you'll do mass arrests.

And in the South, they'll mass arrest millions of progressives, liberals and minorities.

Doesn't sound like much of an improvement over what we have now.

[TeamProg]

37. Massive health care for all. Which the north will be able to afford. n/t

[Kaleva]

39. No Northern state is interested in health care for all.

There isn't enough support from Congress critters from Northern states to get it enacted.

[TeamProg]

38. "Doesn't sound like much of an improvement over what we have now."

And nothing is being done about that, the south is leaving it up to the north and battleground states to do it for them. Enough is enough, time to cut bait.

[Blue_true]

47. If the country was partitioned in two, the current North and South

would no longer exist. The East and West would remain since the best way to divide the country is along a North-South boundary.

Some people would have to move to their preferred country, but that process is manageable.

[Kaleva]

53. You are talking about relocating millions, not just "some"

Otherwise, a number of states in the new Blue country would have Republican governors and/or Republican controlled state legislatures and state Supreme courts.

[Blue_true]

79. Yes, millions would have to move.

If the country continues to devolve, splitting up will be by far the best choice. I honestly don’t see an end to the devolution, given that one political party (republicans) has checked out of the union and is just making noise about being Patriots.

[Kaleva]

81. I'd think it'd be worse for the Red states as they'd have to deal with the influx of millions

While Blue states could much more easily handle the fewer number of Democrats and unaffiliated liberals moving in.

[Hortensis]

63. Well, the south is actually becoming more advanced, socially and

economically. Even during this severe backlash by a minority of strong social conservatives against the changes they can't stop.

[TeamProg]

72. The split isn't going to happen in our lifetimes. But rights in general appear more limited now in

the South then they were 20 years ago.

See: Voting & abortion, protests and public gatherings, right to clean water and air, right to a fair and speedy trial.

[Hortensis]

73. Failing a RW coup d'etat, tho, we will normalize again. Even in the south

a solid majority supports civil rights and social justice for everyone. We're not in the 1950s but in a period of enraged reaction against the great advances in equality that we've continued into this century so far.

And although many younger people breed true, most were born into and comfortable with a changed world and just don't share their elders' social anxieties, or fegressive aspirations, to anything like the same degree.

As you say about the "split" fantasy. I really can't imagine conditions under which a split might occur. They'd either be so good we'd be throwing flowers at each other and promising to visit often or so bad that both sides would already be devastated and desperate. We have far too much to lose, and we would lose it, by allowing backwards states to become a failed nation or nations on our border. Before that, of course, there comes our absolute duty to protect the rights and property of citizens residing in those states.

[Kaleva]

21. The folks who consider this don't take in account the problem of relocating many millions.

And what do you do with the so-called battle ground states?

I imagine quite a few would lie about who they voted for or which party they prefer if they didn't vote in order to stay where their home, job, friends and family are.

[Hortensis]

65. Yes, it's not serious. Even those who love the idea the most would

be stopped short when finally spending even a minute of thinking about how it could be done. Very interesting to muse about, though.

[vercetti2021]

23. I'm not really surprised by this

People who want a better standard of living, choices and to live their own lifestyles do not want to be held back by a bunch of troglodytes. I live in Texas and I want the fuck outta here. I'm not waiting for it to turn blue. They will ensure that'll never happen. I'd rather move to Washington where my friends live. At least I'll know I'll be safe as a transgender person there.

[Kaleva]

24. Stay away from the eastern 2/3rds and south-western parts of Washington.

For your own safety, restrict yourself to the north-western part of the state.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Washington_Presidential_Election_Results_2020.svg

[vercetti2021]

25. Thanks for the heada up

Most likely I'd settle in Spokane. That's where my bestie lives with her girlfriend

[TeamProg]

29. Southern Congressmen would NEVER go for a split up - The KNOW the south would fail at all things.

We and THEY know the GOP cannot govern. Even RW southerners would finally revolt b/c they didn't get their farm money or their college team money or their refinery and oil subsidies.

A stand-alone South would FAIL MISERABLY so McConnell and Cruz will never let them split away. THAT, is why the North is in DEEP TROUBLE. The south keeps the north from progressing.

Heck, they don;t even have to take half of the debt !!

[Blue_true]

49. The split would be north to south to make most sense.

That means the current north and the current south would each be cleaved in half, with one half becoming 100% blue.

[NurseJackie]

31. This will not happen. But maybe one state would secede...

... Texas? South Carolina? Florida? (One of the ones with a crazy governor.)

[Red Mountain]

35. They can try

but Federal troops have a pretty good track record.

This time I'd be a lot less generous to the leaders.

No statues.

[Polybius]

51. I think they'd let them go without a shot fired this time

War isn't the answer if a state peacefully wants a divorce.

[Red Mountain]

33. LOL

Not going to happen. If it does happen it's going to be a bloodbath.

Childish stupidity to think it would happen in an orderly fashion like the next redistricting argument. Don't waste the time.

[nolabear]

34. Talk is cheap. And stupid.

[Thtwudbeme]

41. I kind of "get it" on a shallow, thoughtless level- I would be lying

if I didn't look at Magats and wished they could just have their own nasty little country somewhere---

But, realistically- those fools in Texas can't even handle a 6 inch snow- and Houston is getting to the point of being non-navigable in a vehicle during normal summer rainstorms.

Funny- those fools are probably counting on NC/ SC and GA--- nope. There are too many blue areas in all those states, most notably Charlotte, Atlanta and Savannah. Charleston is tough to call- I have no idea what the politics are down there lately.

[Kaleva]

55. In MI, the great majority of Trump voters live in the urban or mostly urban counties

The rural counties couldn't handle the massive influx of new people even when considering the departure of a much smaller number of Biden voters from the rural and mostly rural counties to the urban ones. The number of votes Trump got in Wayne County (Metro Detroit) is 1/3 the total population of the 15 counties that make up the Upper Peninsula.

[budkin]

46. The good news is that it'll never happen

Because corporations would lose too much money.

[TeamProg]

52. Correct! n/t

[betsuni]

56. "Fiddle dee dee. War war war. This war talk is spoiling all the fun at every party this spring."

[Hortensis]

71. Lol. Speaking of, who gets what parts of our enormous military?

A lot of our nuclear capability is in or based in red and/or border states. How about a struggling far-right nuclear power next door? Propped up by its friend Russia perhaps?

"I'll think about that tomorrow. Tomorrow is another day."

[GoneOffShore]

58. No, no, no. I wrote this last year and posted it on FB in response to a 'Secession' comment

The big problem with secession/partition is that there are large numbers of people in the 'Red' states who don't share the political, religious, or cultural values of the people 'in control' in those states, along with POC and LBGTQ folks. Then there are those people with 'Red' state values in the 'Blue' states, even though their situation would not approach in any fashion that of people with Blue state values in a Red state.

Secession/partition - call it what you will - throws enormous numbers of people 'under the bus', in a very awful way. Some people have ties to the area where they live: familial, business, sentimental, etc. Huge sacrifices are involved.

It's easy to say 'People can migrate', but it takes a lot to completely pull up your roots, get rid of everything, and start in a new place. Most people really don't have the resources, financially, psychologically, and physically to do that.

I've moved countries three times - once to the UK in 1970, back to the US in 1980, and finally to France in 2018. Even wanting to move causes major stress and upset. Some folks never get over it.

Splitting the US up would end up causing far more harm than can be imagined. Think North and South Korea, India and Pakistan, Bosnia, Armenia, the first American Civil War, etc, etc, ad infinitum.
There would be disputes over borders, water rights, licensing of products, etc, etc. And the 'Law of Unintended Consequences' would apply in ways that at this stage are not even being considered.

The US needs to be fixed. And there are mechanisms to fix it. It's just that at the moment those mechanisms need some serious adjusting. And there are a lot of people who have a vested interest in seeing that those adjustments aren't made.

[Hortensis]

68. Yes. Yearning for easy answers would be blasted soon enough

by realization of the enormous cruelty, irresponsibility, and breathtaking injustice to many tens of millions that splitting would involve.

And back to fixing...

[Mad_Machine76]

61. They have to live under our Presidents

just like we have to live under theirs. Except, under our Presidents, there's a possibility that they might actually see some improvements in their lives. If that is unacceptable, there are plenty of other right-wing authoritarian theocratic-style countries that perhaps they would be happier living under (although I suspect that they would probably be unhappy anywhere where they're not in charge). There is no practical way to carve up this country and it's not even palatable.

[Roisin Ni Fiachra]

62. The new Red State nation would be similar to Gilead in The Handmaid's Tale.

Or Nazi Germany.

The fascists would be ecstatic.

Can't let our fellow Americans suffer under these kinds of regimes. Unite against fascism.

[Hortensis]

64. Living in GA, I've thought of this each time people imagine a split or splits.

Just looking at the South, I believe that, without federal laws, spreading of wealth from other states to benefit southern people, and bribes to governments to encourage what's needed, a south turned over to the control of what the GOP has become would inevitably go into decline. The combination of withdrawal of liberal state support with the RW extremism (social and economic) that Republicans have degraded to and severe effects from both climate change and flight of important businesses would be horrific.

How bad's my question. Although there would be attempts by a "GOP" nation and states to do what was necessary to save itself, I believe that ideological incompetence and corruption are so severe at this point that a transition to widespread poverty, failing services, and high crime, terrorism, and moving in of drug cartels and other organized crime, could conceivably happen shockingly quickly, perhaps even within a decade or so. Russia, which exports corruption to destroy nations, would focus its efforts to make it happen, also other external enemies.

And the rest of the country absolutely would be affected for the worse, in every way possible. But think mass migration out of the south, legal and illegal, and southern incursions into and battles for border states, for just a couple of big effects that don't need experts to explain would happen. The millions of migrants and outright refugees fleeing danger and persecution would not be coming with pockets fat with equity from sales of their homes and businesses, either. By far most would be poor, many destitue.

This goes to various degrees for all the conservative regions of this nation, especially including the southwest. Though some would do better, such as the mountain states, none would do as well as Americans there have always been accustomed to. Except for those states that saw the light and were able to change, and ideally tried to rejoin the union. If both sides allowed.

[marie999]

80. If Texas was to be one of the states that left the USA

would they bring back slavery for their fourth go-round?

[ecstatic]

83. Irreconcilable differences.

The qpublican party is too far gone.